Happy Memorial Day!
Summer has unofficially started. BBQ Grills have been pulled out and fired up. Kiddie swimming pools have been christened. I hope you have been having a good holiday weekend and are enjoying Memorial Day. Hopefully you are like me and sleeping in today because, yay, no work today!
In the midst of all of the celebration there will be parades and the laying of wreathes as the country honors our military men and women. Now this post is not going to make you feel guilty about enjoying the long weekend and having fun on memorial day. I see some of those type posts on Facebook and I hate them. What this post is going to do is gently remind you that the reason we can enjoy the BBQs and days at the beach is because there are men and women who have sacrificed their lives to allow us to do so. They enlist, they volunteer to be moved from city to city and country to country. They volunteer to be away from their homes and families. Many of them will not be at the beach or their family BBQ this weekend. They will be somewhere preparing to or actively protecting our right to pursue these joys.
So, as you enjoy this Memorial Day remember why we are celebrating, say a prayer for those who serve, their families, and the families of those who have fallen while serving. Then Chase Joy so that they have not protected us in vain.
Thank you for your Service.
Do you have friends or family in the military? Who will you be thinking of this Memorial Day?
Guilt is an unproductive response. You can be moved by soldiers' sacrifice, cry for them/with their families, and see what you can do to honor them. But breast-beating and woe-is-me seems like gratuitous whining far removed from the soldiers' generosity. Observing Memorial Day means acknowledgement and respect.
Thanks for spreading the positive!